KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 — A total 1,681 nurses from private nursing colleges will be recruited at the end of the year to serve in government hospitals, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
He said prior to this the government only hired one per cent of nurses from private colleges for each 3,000 intake.
Liow (picture) said the recruitment this time went up to meet the lack of nurses at government hospitals and high applications from private colleges.He said according to the records of the Human Resources Ministry, the number of applications went up to 5,000 recently from 2,500 last year.
“Each year we will recruit this number until 2015 when we will have 6,726 nurses from private colleges,” he told reporters after opening an international conference on Disaster Nursing in conjunction with the 17th Malaysia-Singapore Nursing Conference here today.
He said to ensure the standard of the nurses from private colleges met requirements, they had to sit for and pass the Malaysian Nurses Board examination.
He also said there were 66,000 nurses working in government hospitals nationwide.
In his speech, Liow said 473 nurses had been trained in disaster nursing preparedness while a further 438 nurses were trained in emergency and trauma nursing programmes last year.
He said these training programmes had also been extended to private institutions.
“Emergency physicians in the main hospitals throughout Malaysia have started to develop nurse training programmes in the area of disaster preparedness, formulation of disaster plans for hospitals and organising disaster drills to ensure proper patient care and management in disaster settings,” he said.
Liow said nurses must be prepared to deal with all hazards as they played a major role in responding to such events to ensure the best possible outcomes. — Bernama
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